


Access

by Not_You



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crime Fighting, Disability, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Finger Sucking, Fix-It of Sorts, Fuck yeah Tesla, Guilt, Hacking, Hotel Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Museums, POV Female Character, Paralysis, Permanent Injury, Robots, Surveillance, Vibrators, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-12 03:50:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 10,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2094609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Gwen Stacy almost died, and what happened after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Terminal Velocity

Gwen hears the snap. It's a small, internal sound, like when her jaw pops, but so much sharper. She stares up at the sky and the clock tower, and wonders what time it really is, the hands spinning in ways that mean nothing. Peter is there. He follows her down and Gwen wants to say something to him, but she can't breathe. She wants to reach out, but her arm won't move. She tries to say his name, staring up into those dark eyes that are filling with tears. The last thing she hears is Peter's broken voice saying her name, pleading for her to stay with him.

She wakes slowly, to a steady beeping and whooshing. Even with years of medical tv shows under her belt, it still takes her a long, blurry moment to recognize them as a heart monitor and a ventilator, respectively. When she finally gets her heavy eyelids open, there's no sign of Peter. Just her mother, sitting there and looking as bad as she had when Dad had died. Gwen still can't move, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

"It's okay, Gwen," Mom says, voice cracking just a little. "It's okay. I'm here." She takes Gwen's limp and unresponsive hand, and Gwen wishes more than anything that she could squeeze back and let Mom know that she can hear, that she's awake and knows who and where she is. "Peter wanted to be here, but only I'm allowed." Gwen wants to know how bad it is, but she can't make a sound. "Your neck is broken," Mom tells her, voice rock steady. "At C5. We're waiting for the swelling to go down to know more." She brushes Gwen's hair out of her face, warm and ticklish. Gwen wants to say she's sorry, to apologize for dragging Mom into this mess. "I know you were doing what you felt you had to," Mom says softly. "You're your father's daughter." She wipes Gwen's tears away and kisses her forehead. "It's okay."

For a long time after that, Gwen fades in and out. Reality is a blurry dream of pain and antiseptic white, with flashes of her mother's face. She doesn't see Peter until a week after she's really awake again, sitting up and trying to learn to talk around her tracheostomy. He doesn't wait for visiting hours but comes creeping into the room at three a.m. like he came to her window what feels like a lifetime ago. He has timed it well. He's between rounds and the rest of the ward is asleep or sedated, Gwen awake because her neck hurts and she's tired of the drugs. She opens her eyes and there he is, looking even worse than the last time she saw him.

"Gwen..." It's a husky, devastated whisper, and she sighs as best she can.

"About time," she croaks. She's still learning to use her Passy-Muir valve, but it's light-years better than being mute. Peter falls into her mother's usual chair like his strings have been cut, and buries his face in his hands for a long moment. "Hey," Gwen finally says, "crank me up if you're going to sit there." To his eternal credit, Peter stops wallowing and slowly raises her up. "When," Gwen says once she's at a comfortable height, and he stops.

"Does... does it hurt?"

"Yeah," she says, "but I'm alive to feel it."

"I'm so fucking sorry."

"Be sorry for not showing up sooner. You took care of business, right?"

"Yeah," he says, and she can hear him choking up again. "I listened to your speech."

"Good." She smiles, feeling her own eyes start to get wet. "Now are you gonna kiss me or not?"

He hesitates, but only for a moment, leaning in with heartbreaking caution. Gwen knows by now that the tube can actually stand a little motion, but she can't really blame him. She wants to just grab his hair and haul him down, but that will probably never happen again, even if she gets some function back in her hands. So she waits instead, and the press of his lips on her own is sweeter than it has ever been. Gwen has a little feeling in her shoulders these days, but no motion yet. Her mouth is fine, though, and she deepens the kiss as best she can without being able to move her neck. Peter makes a faint whimpering noise, one trembling hand cupping her face as his other arm supports him against the bed. He pulls back at some sound she can't hear, and skitters under the bed just like a real spider when April, the night nurse comes in.

"All right, Gwen," she says, "time to stop talking to yourself and get some sleep." Gwen really isn't supposed to have the valve in at night at all, but since she can't sleep anyway and needs the extra practice, April lets it slide. Within limits. Now Gwen grumbles and lets April remove and clean the valve, leaving her voiceless again. Because April is actually a good nurse, she makes sure Gwen is as comfortable as possible before she moves on to the others. Usually April's round is the highlight of Gwen's night, but now it seems to take forever. With her usual empathy, April doesn't hang around and talk to Gwen like she so often does, wishing her a good night and leaving her totally not alone.

Peter crawls out from under the bed again, looking even more lost. Gwen just smiles, wishing she could give him a thumbs up. He smiles back, brave boy that he is, and kisses her again, sitting beside her in silence until her eyelids start to droop. "Goodnight, Gwen," he finally whispers, kissing her cheek and vanishing the way he came.


	2. Sustenance

Mercifully, Dad left them decent insurance, so Gwen doesn't have to worry about bankrupting her family. Mom gets pissed when she brings it up, of course, because she's Gwen's mother and is willing to spend whatever it takes to get Gwen home again. Accordingly, Gwen busts her ass in physical and occupational therapy, and tries not to think about the cost. As the swelling goes down, it turns out that she's lucky enough to be incomplete at C5, and with hours and hours of grueling goddamn therapy, she's going to be able to flex her elbows. She doesn't cry much because there's no time, but she does the day she starts to get a little feeling in her hands. They'll probably never move again, but at least now she knows where they are.

Peter shows up in his own person soon after Gwen has settled into the routine. Mom's mouth becomes that thin, hard line of disapproval, but she's cordial enough. She's probably pissed at him for not coming earlier, and Gwen cringes inside to think of what she'd say to Peter if she knew. But damn it, it's not Peter's fault that she's paralyzed. She decided to help, Harry decided to throw her off the clock tower, and Peter did the best he could. It's his fault Gwen's _alive_. She beams at him as if her neck and shoulders aren't on fucking fire.

"Hey, stranger."

He smiles back, but his eyes are still so sad. "Hey. How's it going?"

"I'm in horrible pain, but that's just how PT works, and now I get to quit and talk to you, so I guess it's going pretty good." She's proud of how much more normal she sounds now, and Peter actually laughs a little.

Her therapist chuckles as well. "You'll be doing better in a minute."

And it's true, because there's nothing like an injection of celecoxib to help with this kind of thing. She sighs, that sound still totally weird, and Mom wheels her back to her room to rest. She doesn't say anything to Peter, but doesn't stop him from coming with them, and once she's sure Gwen is comfortable, even leaves them alone together for a bit, heading to the cafeteria to get her lunch and promising to bring back one of the chocolate pudding cups, because Gwen can swallow semi-solid food again and that's awesome. Once she's out of the room, Peter kisses Gwen softly. When he pulls away she thinks for a moment that he's going to apologize again, and wonders if she can flex an arm enough to smack him. He doesn't, though. He just looks at her like he never wants to do anything else.

"So brave," he says at last, and Gwen smiles.

"You sound like Mom." She regrets saying it because it makes him look guilty again. She rolls her eyes. "Peter, enough. I did what needed to be done and so did you. I'm not going to lie and say this doesn't suck, but death would suck a whole lot worse, okay? I love you, and you saved me."

"I love you, too," he croaks, and has to rest his head on the edge of the mattress for a long moment to compose himself. It's a strain, but Gwen grits her teeth and manages to flop her hand onto his head, the best version of stroking his hair that she can manage. Peter sobs, and sits up with tears on his face, taking her hand and covering it in kisses. Gwen's fingers won't even twitch, but she feels every touch, soft and slow and reverent. She shivers, and Peter sighs, breath warm on her palm. He presses a kiss there and then draws back, looking up a moment before Mom comes back in, bearing salad for herself and pudding for Gwen. She sets her tray down and opens the cup. Peter moves out of her way, and watches her feed it to Gwen. It's horribly awkward and she wishes he wouldn't, but at least her mouth is the same as ever, and Mom isn't just shoveling food down the patient to get it over with, which is definitely the worst. Not that that hasn't improved since Mom had caught one of the nurses at it and ripped him up one side and down the other, but of course the person who started Gwen on solids as an infant has a better sense of her rhythm.

Mom glances over at Peter between spoonfuls, and he blushes. "Sorry, I just... I'd like to be able to help. Later on."

Gwen smiles, suddenly about sixty-five percent less embarrassed. "Watch and learn, I guess."

Mom turns back to her and strokes her hair. "It's just a matter of patience. And you're _much_ more cooperative than you were as a baby, Gwen."

She laughs. "I try. More, please?"

"Of course." Mom feeds her the rest of the cup and then carefully wipes an invisible amount of pudding off of Gwen's lips, something that other people sometimes forget and which drives her crazy.

"Thanks, Mom."

"You're always welcome, sweetheart."

Peter quietly takes his leave then, but a couple of days later he comes by while Mom is off taking care of the boys (and Gwen feels awful for her brothers, worried about her and de facto neglected as well) and proves that he really was paying attention, tenderly helping Gwen with her lime Jello under the supervision of Holly, one of the better nurses. Once she's reasonably sure that Peter won't drown her patient in gelatin, she leaves them alone, and Gwen smiles.

"Looks like you pass."

"I try," Peter says, scooping up another tiny bite. "Is this about as solid as you can go? Aunt May wants to send you something, but she wants to be sure you can eat it."

"I don't think I'm really supposed to chew for at least another week, but something homemade would be great."


	3. Better Living Through Technology

The guilt is unavoidable, but Peter tries not to let it slow him down. Gwen's the one most affected and she's working hard and not complaining. He can do no less. Still, the memory of her fall plays over and over in his mind, and he knows that he will never stop wondering what he could have done differently. And that leads to boomerang guilt, because Gwen could have died and he should just be grateful. No matter what he does, he feels like an asshole, and he's glad that Aunt May hasn't tried to make him talk about it. She just makes his favorite foods and hugs him at every opportunity

Today Peter makes his way home on autopilot, and calls to his aunt as soon as the door is shut behind him. "Aunt May?" Sometimes she takes a nap around this hour, so Peter keeps his voice just loud enough to be heard in the kitchen, her other usual haunt.

"In here, Peter," she says, and he comes in to find her assembling her (totally justifiably) famous tuna casserole.

"Hi, Aunt May," he says, setting his bag down on the table and going to the fridge for a soda.

"How's Gwen?"

"Pretty good. Making progress in physio, talking better. I helped her to some Jello without annoying or choking her."

"Oh, so she's eating now?"

"Yeah, but just things like that. Think you could make her some custard?" 

The custard is also famous, and the batch Aunt May makes for Gwen is a work of art. Peter carries it to the hospital the next day in a neat plastic tub, the transparent sides showing the rich, pale-gold color and the elegant zig-zag of raspberry sauce on the top. It's probably too much for one sitting, but this is the smallest container they have and hopefully Gwen will like it enough to want leftovers. The raspberry sauce is also homemade, because Aunt May is a fucking _goddess_. Peter times his visit to be before first lunch. Gwen has described herself as 'on hobbit time' because of course she has a good nine meals a day, given how small each one is. He kind of hopes her mother isn't there, because Mrs. Stacy presumably despises both him and Spiderman with every molecule of every fiber of her being, and Peter really can't blame her.

It turns out that Gwen's mother isn't there, but that a nurse is and that Peter has to wait in the hallway while some 'personal care activity' goes on inside. He's been reading up on the care Gwen needs now, and assumes they're changing her bag or checking for bed sores or something. A bowel program this close to a meal seems kind of sadistically gross. Whatever it is doesn't take very long, and Gwen still has an appetite when he goes in, eyes brightening at the sight of the custard.

"You come bearing food!"

Peter smiles. "Yes, real food, made from real things." He settles into his usual chair and pulls the lid off, letting her smell the custard and look at how pretty it is before feeding her half the tub in between listening to her bitch about the struggle to bend her elbows.

"It's just so fucking annoying, because I can feel my hands and wrists, and I can feel my shoulders, but it's like my whole arm is just magically not even there. I feel like a cartoon character or something."

And Peter is listening, but as Gwen talks about her various mobility challenges, part of his mind starts to wander. The same part that built his webshooters. By the time he leaves the hospital, the remainder of the custard in Mrs. Stacy's protective custody, visions of helper robots are dancing in his head.

People throw away the damnedest things, and after weeks of scouring every metal dump for miles around as well as begging parts from colleges and vocational schools, Peter is ready to begin. There are so many new alloys, strong and light, and Peter cuts and solders them as May frets about his hands and the chemicals and how late Peter stays up. He doesn't neglect Gwen, of course, but he doesn't tell her what he's doing, either. It's still so early, for Gwen and for any robots Peter builds. Of course, if he could build something as determined as Gwen he would be a god.

The day Gwen can actually transfer into a wheelchair is a truly joyful one, though, and watching the process gives Peter a better idea of what his bots will need to be able to do. He has already scrounged plenty of padding for the various manipulator arms, but as he learns to help Gwen get around, the speeds and weights involved become much more clear. He can already tell that spider-strength is going to be one hell of an advantage and he maybe kinda totally takes advantage of the transfers to bask in Gwen's scent and the warm aliveness of her motionless body. She smiles up at him when he helps the nurse arrange her on the bed for a nap. Her mother is sitting beside her to hold her hand as she drifts off, and Peter leaves them alone, thoughts whirring along as he heads home to get back to work. He scraps a few things, changes some others, and doesn't sleep until May comes into his room and makes him.

"Peter," she says, putting her hands on his shoulders where they're hunched around his ears from manipulating delicate circuits, "I think what you're doing is sweet and will probably turn out to be very helpful, but if you don't go to bed I will dose you, so help me God."

"I think my metabolism's accelerated now," Peter mumbles, but sets his work down.

"Come on," May says more gently. He's already wearing pajama pants, so it's easy for her to tuck him into bed and just sit there with him, stroking his hair and humming a lullaby until sleep finally overtakes and pounces Peter's racing mind.


	4. The Road Ahead

More than anything at this point, Gwen wants to sleep in her own room again. Mom has brought what she can to the hospital, of course, like Gwen's blanket and her old stuffed pig, but there's no real substitute. Her brothers visit every few days, and they get used to her whole rig pretty fast. And Peter and Mom are so great about it that Gwen almost forgets about the inevitable Awkward. And then one of the day nurses tells her that Eugene Thompson has come to see her if that's all right. And she says it is and only remembers that he has never seen her like this when his face goes pale as he comes in. He manages to smile, though, and has brought her flowers. Bird of Paradise, and their riot of color is glorious against the whiteness of everything.

"Hey," Flash says, wide eyes making him look like a little kid.

"Hey, Flash." She glances around and finds a spot where the flowers will be in her line of sight but won't get in the way of all her machinery. "Put them over there and sit down." Flash looks utterly helpless for a moment, and Gwen smiles. "Watch where I look." She stares at the spot and Flash is able to follow along this time. He sets the vase down carefully, and actually spends a moment arranging the blossoms.

Once Flash has done these things, he looks at a loss again, sort of too big for the available space. He hunches over and tries not to stare at her gear. "So."

"So," Gwen says, and then takes mercy on him. "It's nice of you to come by, and the flowers are beautiful."

"You're welcome," he mutters, fidgeting.

"What have you been up to?"

He shrugs. "Nothing. College with an undeclared major. Y'know. Treading water."

"I hope you didn't miss the deadline for that scholarship without me there to nag you."

"Nah," Flash says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I remembered. Uh... what about you?"

"Online classes when I'm well enough. If I had to break my neck, I'm glad I did it in the age of Skype."

"And you broke your neck helping Spiderman. That's pretty cool."

Gwen laughs as Flash sputters and backpedals, and wishes she could raise a hand to silence him. "I know what you mean," she says when he pauses for breath, glad to be off the ventilator and able to speak in a natural rhythm again. "And I am glad I was doing something worthwhile."

Flash really does mean well and Gwen is glad he's thinking of her and she's always hungry for news of the outside world, but after he leaves she feels exhausted and slightly depressed. This is what she has to look forward to for the rest of her life, apparently. People staring and trying not to stare and acting like she's going to break if they breathe on her too hard. At least Flash was brave enough to keep up a conversation.

At long last Gwen is past the time of constant naps, but now that means that she can't just sleep this off. Instead she gets some help transferring to her chair and then prowls the corridors on her own. The wheels give her a sense of independence, even if she does have to ask people to operate the elevator for her. At least this is a hospital. People are more primed to deal with her, though she does catch a younger girl staring sidelong at one point. The kid is missing a foot, and is probably thinking some variation on, 'there but for the grace of God.' Gwen hopes it's a consolation, because when things are particularly bad she thinks about Christopher Reeve and twitches her forearms, so who is she to judge?

Rolling back into her room, she finds Mom waiting for her. It turns out that Gwen will able to at least visit home sometime next week. Going over it in her mind, Gwen knows that home isn't the most accessible place in the world, but at least it's all on one level and the elevators are roomy. Gwen has been in therapy since she could physically tolerate it, of course. Getting paralyzed is a hell of a thing and Dr. Rose is probably one of the world's best counselors. Always calm but never cold, she actually knows how to listen. She does even more of it than usual in the days leading up to Gwen's home visit, extra sessions blocked in so Gwen can fret and obsess in ways she tries to keep her mother from seeing.

There's a certain dolorous pride to having figured out how to pace in a wheelchair and Gwen demonstrates her accomplishment for Dr. Rose, making slow figure-eights as she tells her about anxious dreams of running. Dreams of her pre-injury body are one of those things she only talks about to Dr. Rose, because she's paid to put up with this and can care without desperate guilt. Today Dr. Rose just lets Gwen vent until she can stop the chair and remind herself of everything everyone is doing to help prepare her for this massive adjustment. 

Mom says that Simon has covered the slight dip between the hallway and the floor of his room with duct tape, 'so Gwen can visit me.' It's sweet enough to make her even more glad than usual that she never followed through on any of her many threats to kill her brothers. Philip has gotten time off from school to come home and see her, and all three of them are there to greet her as she rolls out onto the sidewalk. There's a courtyard inside the hospital walls, so Gwen has felt the sun on her face since her injury, but being out here in the glass and steel with everyone racing along at the usual New York pace is dizzying.


	5. Objects At Rest

Getting into Mom's new van is something of an adventure, but clearly all her fussing and measuring and comparison shopping has paid off. Gwen's chair locks nicely into place, and there's conventional seating beside her, so Simon can sit there and make her feel much less like a dog in the back of the family station wagon. And can provide conversation, because of course nothing Mom could buy can solve the back seat problem. Simon is well into the third grade now, and has a lot to report. These days his excitement is more muted, though. It has been since Dad died, and Gwen hopes that this whole thing hasn't done too much more damage.

The drive seems longer than it is, and when Gwen is safe on the sidewalk again, the old familiar building looks strange from her new height. Disembarking had actually gone pretty well, even if there had been one alarming moment when Gwen had been afraid of going over backward, and the doorman seems honestly glad to see her. And to have seen something in his long life to prepare him for her current state, because there's no Awkward. It makes her want to hug him, but she settles for giving him a beaming smile on her way to the elevators, all of which are working and not crowded. She also finds that she was right about their dimensions. Packing into one with her family around her, Gwen figures that has to be a good sign.

The hallway is a whole trip of its own, but the hard carpet is easy to roll over, and when the door opens Gwen swallows hard around the lump in her throat. Getting around in the apartment isn't as easy as getting to it in the first place, but Mom and the boys have really done a lot. The place was already legally accessible, with the proper hallway width and capacious bathrooms, and now the furniture has been moved out of the way, and the bathroom closest to her bedroom modified so she can use it. There's also an electric bag-emptier on the closed lid of the toilet, waiting to be attached to her chair.

"I kept the receipt," Mom says, smiling softly. "I'm not supposed to dictate your adaptive equipment, so we can return this for credit if you don't want it."

"I think I do, though," Gwen says. She doesn't play with it much during her visit, though. She's too busy relearning her home and basking in the atmosphere of her real room, so unlike the one at the hospital. She also rolls into Simon's room, just to prove to him that she can do it.

They can't have a real family dinner, but they do share a nice cup of that pureed leek soup Mom makes, and Gwen does her best not to cry over actually being here at the table and sipping her soup out of the old ceramic cup with bunnies on the bottom. They were an inducement to finish her milk as a child, and now they reappear like old friends. Gwen is starting to be able to flex her elbows, but for now Mom holds the cup, since Gwen doesn't want to break it or spill on herself, and it's much heavier than the disposable plastic cup of water which is so far the only thing Gwen has fed herself without making a mess. She demands that Mom agree to a bite-for-bite agreement, though, so she'll get some of her own soup while it's still hot, between feeding Gwen's to her in careful sips.

Gwen finally does cry when she has to go back to the hospital. She can't help it, gazing heavenward and sniffling as quietly as possible. It passes to Mom and Simon anyway, and even Philip looks suspiciously bright-eyed by the time Gwen is rolling towards the hospital doors, taking quick, deep breaths. She gets it together enough to bid everyone a fond farewell, and then bawls her eyes out and has to ring for a nurse to help her deal with all the snot. It's one of the good nurses, at least, and she soothes Gwen and gets her properly cleaned up when it finally stops.

Apparently sinking into a depression after visiting home is fairly normal, and Gwen just grits her teeth and works even harder in physical and occupational therapy. She also snaps at Peter when he visits, which only puts her in a worse mood when the guilt sets in. And then she catches sight of Spiderman on the news and it's even worse, because now she feels like she might not even get the chance to make up with him.

He comes creeping in that night, though, still dressed in his torn suit, hair a mess from his mask. Gwen shows off the fruits of her long and painful days in physical therapy by bending her elbow enough to poke him in the chest with one limp finger, glaring. He of course just gives her those damnably effective puppy dog eyes and takes her hand in both his own. The gloves feel like they always did, smooth and weirdly sticky, and Gwen sighs.

"I knew you wouldn't be able to stay out of action, but you could have waited until I had apologized for being mean the last time you were here." 

Peter rolls his eyes, and then presses a kiss to her hand. "If getting a bit snippy is the worst this level of stress brings out in you, I'll have to wonder if you're even human." He kisses her hand again, warm and soft. "But I'll try to keep this from happening again."


	6. Objects In Motion

Gwen finally gets to go home for good just in time for Christmas, which is of course the best possible present. Peter's gift of a small helper robot is a good second, though. It's about two feet tall, with rugged treads that get it around nicely. It has a kind of big-eyed ugly-cuteness that's impossible not to love, and is already programmed to fetch several specific objects, and to look for them if they're lost. There are instructions with it, and soon Gwen has the voice recognition working. She puts her little friend to work bringing her the rest of her gifts and helping her to unwrap them, its deft manipulator arms excellent for the task.

By the time Peter shows up for a Boxing Day visit, the robot has been named Wally, for obvious reasons. Peter laughs at that. "Has the little guy actually been a help, then?"

Gwen grins. "Sure he has. He helped me unwrap my other presents."

Peter grins back. "Awesome."

After the standard loot comparison and some cocoa with the family, Gwen and Peter go for a walk. Just around the block, because Mom makes a mother hen look inattentive and uninvolved, but it's still nice to get out, and it gives her a reason to wear her new scarf. It's snowing just a little bit, and the air is shockingly fresh. She switches off the power and lets Peter push her along. It's nice to just be together, and Gwen doesn't notice any staring except for a few little kids, and little kids stare at everything. There's a coffee shop on the corner, and Gwen's chair fits through the door easily, setting off a little tinkle of bells above their heads. After some deliberation they get one hot chocolate to go, and share it under the awning outside as it starts to really snow.

"Hey, Gwen?" Peter asks, feeding Gwen a sip. She makes an affirmative noise to show that she's paying attention even as she savors the rich, dark chocolate taste. "So you don't have to take them if you don't want them, but I've totally got more robot designs. You can have like, a fleet of helper monkeys." He pulls the cup back so Gwen can dab at her lips with the napkin clipped to her sleeve. The way her hand flops makes her feel silly, but she also likes being able to do this for herself.

"Can you give me a telepathic interface with my computer?"

Peter pauses in the act of taking a sip of his own, and lowers the cup. "You know, I think there might actually be a noninvasive method for that."

"Brilliant." Gwen never would have called herself a hacker or even 'a computer person' before, but now that the internet is one of her quickest avenues to action, she has changed a few classes and acquired others that she might not have bothered with before. Her computer is about as accessible as Mom could get it, but the speech recognition doesn't always work. She tells Peter this after she drains the cup and he tosses it into a nearby trashcan, and he smiles. "We could probably program you something better."

They talk it over the whole way back, and soon they're firing designs and code back and forth. It's really embarrassing that Peter has been trying to figure out how a robot could do her bowel program for her, but if it's a symptom of him being both thoughtful _and_ realistic, she'll take it. Between homework and physical therapy and designing things with Peter, Gwen has never been more busy in her life. She's glad of it, because it takes her mind off of worrying about Peter as Spiderman swings around the city putting his life on the line. He tries to always give her some idea of the region of his patrol, and to be sure to have made up in the wake of any spats. They don't have so many these days, because Gwen is home and has something to do besides hurt and brood, but it's still a good policy to have in place.

He appears at her window one night, and Wally lets him in. Gwen smiles from her bed. "Hey."

"Hey," he says, pulling his mask off. He's dewed with sweat under it, keyed up and adrenalized, and she shivers.

"Come here and kiss me," she says, and Peter closes the distance as silently as a spider, pressing his mouth to hers in a kiss that's firm, but still exasperatingly chaste. She nips him, and flops her hands onto his shoulders, forcing her tongue into his mouth and making him let out a muffled little squeak of surprise. She sighs as he gets the idea and kisses back properly. She still can't really flex her fingers, but she tries, wanting to dig her nails into his shoulders. His breath catches when she bites him again, and she feels her chest clench with arousal the way her belly used to. Gwen's mouth waters and she's overwhelmed with sudden sense memory, of the taste and the pulsing warmth of Peter's cock on her tongue.

"Gwen..." he moans, almost too quietly to be heard, mindful of her family just a few walls away. She uses one limp hand to push the big buttons of the electric bed control, raising up to about forty-five degrees. Since Gwen's injury, a previously healthily NC-17 rated relationship has hovered at and around PG. First she was in no shape for anything too energetic, and then she had had to try and re-map her body. That's still an ongoing process, and she could actually use a little more help from Peter. Now it's three a.m. and her nightmare-prone little brother might get up and start wandering at any moment, so she just kisses him and whispers in his ear that she's been wondering if her tits still work.


	7. Hand-Eye Coordination

They're adults, and they really need to get a room, but unfortunately the world insists on being riddled with crime and genetically-altered lunatics. Utterly neglected by her boyfriend because Spiderman has to chase random assholes all over creation, Gwen throws herself into homework and hacking. It's just fun, at first, accessing the neighbor's records of porn purchases and engaging in other innocent, girlish diversions when worry and nerve pain have her up at five a.m. Of course, it's only a matter of time until she finds her way into police records and other things of even greater importance.

It's three in the morning on a weekday, her whole exhausted family asleep, when Gwen cracks the public surveillance cameras. It's disquieting how many there are, and where they are. She finds that she can spy on the whole city if she wants to, and when Peter arrives at her window as the time on her computer flips from three fifty-nine to four o'clock, she already has Wally over there to open it for him.

"Hey," Peter says softly, pulling his mask off and then smiling down at Wally. "And hey to you too, little guy." He pats the robot's head. It beeps an acknowledgement (the 'say hi' protocol in action) and shuts the window again as Peter comes over to the bed. "You look less worried than usual."

"That's because I've been watching you," Gwen says in her creepiest voice.

"Oh?" Peter leans around to see her screen, showing the area around the building "Oh, wow."

"My technical skills are getting almost as impressive as your ass-kicking skills. Now give us a goddamn kiss." They've at least got kissing and groping down, but between the lack of time and Peter's understandable (if annoying) trepidation, they haven't gotten much further. Now she licks her way into Peter's mouth and uses every dirty trick she can think of, tongue more sensitive and dexterous than it has ever been. The tip beckons across the roof of Peter's mouth and he whines, trembling and swaying into Gwen, holding himself up on the handrails of the bed. When she finally has to pull away to breathe, Peter's eyes are wide and dark, and his lips are parted. He has such a fucking pretty mouth, and Gwen sighs, bending her elbow just enough to brush the sensitive pads of her fingers over it. Peter shudders and catches her hand, covering it in kisses. She can't help a sharp little gasp, and he draws back, watching her face.

"Peter..."

"Sorry, I just..." he grimaces in wretched self-awareness, "it's not you, it's me?" He must see her sudden and total dejection in her face, because he covers her with kisses, assuring Gwen that he's not dumping her. "Seriously," Peter says softly, "I have a lot of feelings. It kind of sucks." Gwen laughs, the sound a bit watery, and Wally rolls up to Peter with a tissue, robot face adorably earnest. "Thanks, little guy," Peter says, taking it and dabbing at Gwen's wet eyes and then holding it in place for her to blow her nose. He does this kind of thing really naturally, and Gwen appreciates it every time. He tosses it into the trashcan and smiles down at her, brow still wrinkled a little with guilt. "Sorry, baby. What I meant is that my own issues are screwing me up. You're definitely still hot and all that, but..." He grimaces again, looking away. "So. The bondage thing. Kinda weird now that so much of you can't move."

"Oh." It actually does explain a lot. They had just really been getting into tying her up before Norman decided to fuck things up for them. She sighs, and flops her hand over Peter's where it's resting on the railing. "I don't... I don't want to be fetishized for my condition, but you're not like that. I think we could get back into it if we just adjust for inflation."

"...What?"

She smiles. "Tying up one wrist these days takes away at least thirty percent of my mobility, which is pretty intense. I think if we just keep that in mind, we'll be fine."

They do keep that in mind, and three days later in a hotel room they try it out. Peter turns down the bed and shifts Gwen onto the sheets, laying her out comfortably on her back, her head and shoulders propped up with pillows so she can watch him undress her. Peter takes his time over everything, and for the first hour he just touches her, learning how things have changed with his fingertips and with a little silver bullet vibrator. It's too intense on Gwen's nipples, which seem to be numbed and over-sensitized at the same time somehow. They calm down a bit with steady pressure, and Peter shivers as they push against his palms. Gwen smiles up at him, flushed, and they continue their mapping, moving on to the shocking new sensitivity of Gwen's ears and jaw and neck. Even kisses on her nose have shifted into something closer to erotic, and she moans when Peter gently bites her shoulders.

By the time Peter is sucking each of her ten fingers in turn, Gwen is trying to figure out if she's having an orgasm. Unable to feel anything below the waist, she can't be sure, but everything she _can_ feel is warm and loose and happy. She moans and shivers comfortably, and bites her lip when Peter looks up at her, those deep eyes full of lust and awe.

"Come up here and kiss me," Gwen says, and Peter reluctantly releases her fingers, carefully setting her hand down on the mattress before crawling up and ranging over her so she can devour his mouth again.


	8. Dispatch

Helping Spiderman work comes naturally to Gwen. She follows him on patrol at first because she's worried about him, and then because she's worried about other people. When she's able to see the beginning of a mugging two blocks away from Peter, she can let him know in time thanks to the little transmitter he wears in his ear now. With Gwen flicking from camera to camera for street level crime, she finds herself calling the police a lot. It's good to be able to help them too, because there's no way Peter can cover the city on his own.

This does make her feel like Big Brother because she kind of is, but Gwen strives to use her new powers for good, and turns away from several opportunities for voyeurism. She wants to Serve and Protect, not Creep and Perv. Besides, she's got homework to do. In the end she has to limit herself to one sweep every hour, but that's still a help to Peter and to the human race at large, so it will do.

In his turn, Peter helps Gwen. By the time spring comes again, she has robotic help for her bowel program, and bedsheets that beep when they detect too much pressure in any one spot. Her room is full of beeping and blinking machines, but they're whimsical and not hospital-y at all, and every one of them is a help. She keeps nagging Peter to file for patents and get these out there, but being Spiderman is exhausting work. She's thinking of just doing it herself and getting his signature, but she's not exactly made of free time right now, either.

And then things get more crunched than ever. She's researching for a paper when Peter comes up on one of her news feeds, and she drops everything to watch him getting his ass kicked by some old man in a vulture suit. She wishes desperately for some drones or something, but at least she's able to help Peter keep tabs on him.

It's still pretty brutal, though, every hit Peter takes make the nerves of Gwen's neck and arms flare up in sympathetic agony. The old bastard has blades that shoot out of his wings, and way too many of them hit Peter. At last he has to give up and let the vulture get away, but at least the medical supplies he was trying to steal are still there. From a children's hospital, yet. Her lip curls in disgust, and she tries to keep it that way, because otherwise she's probably going to cry. It seems to take forever for Peter to show up at her window, even though her computer clock tells her it's barely twenty minutes. At last he drags himself into her room, where Wally is waiting at the window to help him. Gwen supervises the first aid, snapping, "More gently!" at Wally again and again, since it is a command he understands. Every time the little robot lets out a falling, 'guilty' beep, and dabs more gently at Peter's cuts.

"Cut the little guy some slack," Peter says softly, voice hoarse with exertion and pain. "It'd hurt no matter what he did."

"Which is why he should be careful, dammit," Gwen grumbles, wanting to go to Peter, but unsure if it's worth it to transfer to her chair at four in the morning. Peter smiles and stands, giving Wally a soothing pat before limping over to sit by her bed.

"It's not so bad, Gwen. They're not very deep, they just hurt like hell."

She reaches out to him, and he pulls off his gloves to take her hands skin-to-skin, holding them to his mouth and covering them with kisses. "I'm glad you stopped him," Gwen says softly. Further research and a little hacking has told her just how much those drugs are going to mean to a wardful of pediatric trauma patients. This vulture would have stolen almost all hope of their regrowing huge swatches of skin lost in house fires, and chunks of flesh torn out by frenzied dogs.

"That's why they pay me the big bucks," Peter says softly, nuzzling her hands like a cat, following up her wrists and into the tingly numbness of her forearms. "Love you," he mumbles against her skin. "Love you so much."

"Then come here and kiss me," Gwen says, and he does, leaning over and kissing her deeply, hungry and trembling. More than ever Gwen wants a place of her own. She sucks on Peter's tongue and purrs into his mouth, hands trying to clutch at his shoulder and hair, but just twitching a little bit. He shudders and whines, melting into her as much as he safely can, supporting himself on the railing. Gwen sighs when she lets him pull away at last. "If we didn't need to figure who this guy was..."

Peter grins, dark eyes sparkling. "I know. Raincheck?"

"You're damn right."

Peter hides his wounds under long-sleeved t-shirts, and Gwen combs the net for anything even vaguely useful. Straining her skills to the limit, she finds documentation on similar power armor, and the bio circuitry it would take to run such a thing. She also finds out which companies are involved. The part that isn't a strain on her skills is cracking the Hammertech HR records, and she doesn't have to go very far before she finds Adrian Toomes, disgruntled former employee, birth date July 10th, 1944. When she shows Peter the dour old photograph on file, he stares.

"That's the guy. Jesus, Gwen, you found him in two days."

"I bet I can find his suit blueprints faster than that."

Her access to some of the world's best scientific journals and databases helps immensely, and the next time the vulture shows up they're ready for him.


	9. Guidance

The thing Peter hadn't understood the first time is that the wings are the strongest part of the suit. The instinct is to attack them to take the Vulture out of the air, but the only real weak points are the seams on the body, barely visible even to Peter's post-bite vision. They're direct interfaces with Toomes's nervous system, glimmering little threads of silver that blink in and out of visibility with every shift of the old man's body. His thefts have been motivated by a legitimate need for regular doses of H-T9 to keep his bio circuits from malfunctioning, and by a rapidly-emerging addiction to the side-effects of overdose. It's barely out of the experimental stage, one of the new family of neurogenics. Peter actually knows a lot about H-T9, since it's one of the few things that might ever allow Gwen to regain full functionality in her fingers. The thought of someone stealing the stuff from hospitals just because he wants to get high is enough to make Peter's blood boil.

"Don't lose your cool, Spidey," Gwen murmurs in his ear, and Peter smiles under the mask.

Once Toomes realizes that Peter has done his homework and knows where to strike now, he flies more defensively, and almost eludes Peter altogether, but Gwen is on it, following him from camera to camera and relaying his location to Peter. When he pulls out a cached gun, Gwen is able to warn Peter and when the fight moves into an abandoned area of waterfront, she sends out one of the experimental drones, which proves very helpful with its taser-like zaps and also allows Gwen to keep an eye on the action.

After Peter and the drone have driven the Vulture down to a rooftop, it waits to see the Vulture securely webbed up, and then skims away before the police arrive. Peter doesn't stick around much longer, but it's a while before it feels safe to appear in Gwen's window. She's waiting for him, still wearing the cerebral interface he designed. It doesn't do much, but it lets her move a cursor with her thoughts, which lets her operate the drone as quickly as she needs to, subroutines already taking care of most of the cameras. She grins at him, eyes alight, and Wally beeps a greeting, latching the window shut again behind Peter. Peter goes to the bed and lowers the outside rail, sitting on the edge of the mattress and beaming at Gwen, his mask tucked into his backpack. She kisses him before he can say anything, and they keep that up for a while because Gwen was an amazing and ardent kisser even before the injury made her mouth so much more sensitive. Peter feels like she's going to suck his tongue out of his head and that he's not going to mind a bit. When she finally lets him pull away, breathless and trembling, he grins at her.

"Thanks for all the help."

"Thanks for building me such a good drone," she says, radiant.

"Don't sell yourself short," Peter says, leaning on the elevated portion of the mattress. "All that stuff about optic nerves was really useful."

"It does see very well."

"Good."

They lie there for a long moment of intense silence, and then Gwen sighs. "Peter, we need our own place."

Rock hard and high on endorphins, he nods. "You are so fucking right."

They can't do anything about that tonight, and they have to be so goddamn quiet. Wally has already been corrupted, at least, and trundles into the hallway to serve as a lookout while Peter fucks Gwen slowly, always gentle now that she can't feel if something hurts. She's still tight and wet around him, and he tells her so, murmuring into her ear. He touches her everywhere, careful of the border between feeling and numbness, where Gwen has said there's a kind of pins and needles buzz that makes some touches just feel bizarre. Long, sucking kisses are okay, though, and Peter takes each nipple into his mouth in turn, with enough pressure to calm the erratic nerves. Gwen whines and bites her lip, struggling to keep quiet. It's harder to tell when she comes these days, but Peter is learning the signs, and feels her flex spastically around him as she gasps, head tipped back. He shudders and comes soon after Gwen, biting the pillow to muffle himself because her neck is too sensitive to bite that hard anymore.

Peter cleans them both up and beckons Wally back into the room, stretching out on top of the covers beside Gwen and cuddling her until she falls asleep. He makes sure all her bedding is straight, and then swings his way home. He has the decency to have called Aunt May to report that he's all right, but she's waiting up for him anyway. He feels like an asshole, and says so. She just laughs at him.

"Peter, I barely sleep anymore anyway. It's all right."

He sighs. "Aunt May, are you gonna be all right if I move out?"

"Of course I will be, dear. I might take on a roommate just because the place is too large for one, but I'll be all right."

"Okay," Peter says, and pours her another cup of coffee and one for himself. "Gwen and I were talking."

"Take her if she'll have you, boy," May says, and Peter laughs.


	10. The Way We Live Now

Gwen likes the new place, a bright, airy, and very accessible apartment that Peter only makes more so, with a light remodel and sleeker robots. Wally is basically family at this point, but otherwise Gwen is happy to upgrade. Her bowel program is ridiculously easy and so is feeding herself, and it's really getting on her nerves that Peter hasn't gotten these insanely helpful bots into mass production.

"Seriously, Peter," she says as the soft arms of Turnbot turn her in bed one night, "this is ridiculous."

He laughs, embarrassed and adorable. "I know, Gwen. I swear that I'll apply for a Stark grant or something."

"Sooner rather than later," she says, facing him now, resting on her left side. Delicate manipulators unfold from the edges of the padding to gather her hair off the sides of her neck almost before the itching can register, and she sighs. "Seriously, Peter, you're a fucking genius. Humanity needs to benefit. Not that Spiderman isn't a help, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do," he says softly, and sets his _Scientific American_ aside, leaning in and kissing her softly. "So," he murmurs against her lips, "how much of the paperwork is already done?"

Gwen chuckles, and says, "Arrange me in front of my computer and I'll show you." She could get Turnbot to do it, but she likes Peter's hands on her, and he kisses her again as he puts the interface on her head. Gwen has motives aside from altruism as she locates the forms and shows Peter the needed signatures, of course. They're mostly funded by Gwen's insurance, disability, the money Ben left to Peter, and Peter's freelance income. This is sufficient, but only just, particularly with medical bills like Gwen's, as well as their mutual reluctance to take money from May, even with the rent her sublettor gives her.

Now Peter kisses Gwen again, and finally adds the electronic signatures and his Social Security Number, setting the paperwork in motion. Gwen grins at him. "Get the grant application while you're at it."

"Nag, nag, nag," Peter murmurs without looking away from the screen, the corner of his mouth curling up in a smile. He looks over at her as the application downloads. "What would I do without you?"

She smiles. "I have no idea, honey."

Gwen dreams of robots in a library, and of running on strong and tireless legs. Sometimes this leaves her depressed, but today it's refreshing the way dreams of flight are, and she's in an excellent mood as Peter helps her into her clothes and then into her chair; Turnbot quiet, and for now, superfluous. Gwen smiles up at Peter.

"Don't forget your pants, Nurse."

"I'd never give you the satisfaction," Peter says, and kisses her cheek, going to groom and dress himself while Gwen rolls into the kitchen for breakfast. She can eat a bowl of cereal without assistance, but it's sloppy, and she's glad to get into her splints and to switch on Floorbot, who lurks under the table, waiting for people to drop things. When Peter eventually joins her, he insists on cutting up a little fresh fruit for both of them. He hand-feeds Gwen because she's his girlfriend, since with her splints she's able to return the favor.

"I'm glad the bots don't care about how disgusting we are," she says softly, kissing kiwi juice off Peter's mouth.

"Yet another advantage of the line," Peter agrees, grinning at her before getting up and putting everything in order to get Gwen loaded into the van and headed to their favorite of the area's science museums. She's getting used to how much more time it takes to get ready, and to how fucking great handicapped parking spaces are. She got used to staring children ages ago, and smiles at a little knot of them who stop to watch as Peter helps her into her chair again, hanging her purse in its usual place and making sure her feet are settled comfortably on the footrests. "Everything good?" he asks, kneeling at her feet and gazing up at her with those deep, dark eyes.

"Yeah," she says softly, "everything's good."

As Gwen rolls through the (Stark-funded, ha ha) exhibit she has been wanting to see, they talk about Peter's plans if he does get the grant. 

"What else should we have preset?" she asks, looking over her shoulder as Peter pushes her up a long ramp to conserve battery power. "You added insulin pumps, right?"

"Yeah," Peter says, stopping as the floor levels out, "and feeding tubes and epi-pens..." he uses his forearm to wipe some sweat from his face, drawn out by the warmth of the day rather than any exertion of his spider-strength. "I want to be able to keep it customizable, though."

Gwen snorts quietly, flicking a switch to take control of her chair again. "Peter, the lexicon is ten thousand slots big, you'll be fine."

"Yeah, probably." He grins. "Tesla coils next?"

"Fuck yeah, Tesla coils."

It's all too good to last, of course. They watch plasma dance with the true exaltation of real geeks, find an exhibition of gorgeous Crookes tubes, and finally approach the Egg of Columbus like pilgrims at a shrine, feeling lucky to be alive in a time and place that has the thing on loan.

And then it's time to order lunch, and the woman at the pizza counter asks Peter what Gwen wants without even a glance her way. This always stings, but considering how angry it makes Peter, Gwen actually feels sorry for her.

"I don't know," Peter snarls, "but she can talk." The sudden shift from Peter's sweet, diffident nerdboy thing to his current barely-controlled rage is always quite alarming for strangers.

"Peter," Gwen warns, rolling a bit close to Peter so she can use her limited extension to touch his hand. He sighs and takes a deep breath, already looking slightly remorseful. The woman looks like she wants to cry. "Hi. One slice of pepperoni, please." The woman nods and gets their food quickly. Gwen manages to shepherd Peter to the cashier before rolling up to a good table, getting her splints on as he puts her plate down in front of her. "Peter," she says, "you need to not get so angry."

He chuckles ruefully. "It's just hard not to get pissed when people look through you."


	11. Six Years After

May has a question, and since Mommy is working and Mama is gone, she needs to ask Daddy. She runs down the hallway with one of the Floorbots zipping along with her. There are a lot of different places to work in the house, but Daddy said he was going to fix the headset that May broke. It was an accident and Daddy can fix it, so no one was mad, even though the headsets are important. They let Mommy use the computer better than anything else, and May is glad they keep plenty in the house.

Sure enough, Daddy is in his workshop, fixing the pretty gold headband with tiny delicate tools that May is not allowed to touch. He turns and smiles at her, and she smiles back. "Hi, Daddy!"

"Hey, little May. You need something?" He calls her that because Aunt May is big May when they're in the same place, and she giggles. 

"Yeah," she says. They've told her to come to him with questions or anything else when Mommy is 'on a deadline.' It sounds scary, but it just means she has to work hard to finish one of her articles.

"Is Mommy or Mama my real mom?"

Daddy sighs, setting his work aside and sitting down, pulling May up and into his lap. "You know they both are, right?"

"Of course I know that," May says, a bit annoyed. Her friend Sherri is Korean and her moms are black and white, so she didn't come out of either of them, so she knows it doesn't matter. She's just curious. "I wanna know which one I came out of. Joey said wheelchair ladies can't have babies, but he's kinda dumb sometimes."

Daddy laughs, hugging her. "He's definitely being dumb this time, because you did come out of Mommy. It's why you have blue eyes."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Daddy says, and explains about dominant and recessive genes, and how blue and green are both recessive, so she could only get his own hidden blue to add to Mommy's blue. If it had been Mama, her eyes would be green. They're really pretty (just like everything else about Mama, who is so pretty people pay her to take her picture) but May has no complaints about her own dark hair and blue eyes like Mommy's. She also has no complaints about listening to Daddy talk about science, either, and soon he's working on the headset again and explaining how it works. She can't understand all of it, but she gets enough of it to hang around until Mommy's voice comes out of the speaker next to Daddy, telling them to come and eat lunch.

The whole house is full of machines, but the kitchen has even more of them. They're easy to use and most of them go up and down, so Mommy can use them from her chair and so Mama and Daddy can use them without having to stand bent over, because that hurts their backs. The stove is in low position, and Mommy is making grilled cheese sandwiches while last night's soup heats up. May goes over and stands on tiptoe to kiss her cheek, leaning across the wheel and the arm of her chair the way she has ever since she got tall enough. Mommy turns her head to kiss back, and then shoos May away because stoves are dangerous. Daddy is getting bowls and plates, so May gets the spoons and napkins. She's happy when Daddy tells her to put out four, because that means Mama must be on her way back.

May is hungry, and so it seems like it takes forever for the food to be ready. Daddy gives her some crackers, though, and Mommy serves her first, smiling as Daddy sets the bowl down in front of her. "Thank you!" May trills, meaning Daddy for bringing it and Mommy for cutting her sandwich into little squares the way she likes it. She blows on her little bowl of soup and happily samples the nice, creamy onion flavor of it. Grandma makes it a lot when May comes over, and it's easy for Mommy to eat because it's nice and smooth. By the time May is half done with her soup, Mommy and Daddy have settled at the table with her, and by the time May has eaten most of her sandwich Mama comes in. She's wearing tight jeans and a baggy sweater, her beautiful red hair twisted into a knot on top of her head. May bounces up to hug her tightly, and Mama laughs, scooping her up and kissing her cheek, smelling like sweet perfume.

"There's my girl. Have you been good for Mommy and Daddy?"

"Yeah!" May chirps, and Mama laughs, setting her down and going around the table to kiss Mommy and then to serve herself some soup. She doesn't eat sandwiches, and sometimes worries that she's too fat, which May thinks is stupid, because she isn't fat and even if she was she'd still be pretty. She eats plenty of soup, though, so it makes up for the sandwich. She sits between Daddy and Mommy, and gives Daddy a kiss before starting on her soup, since he'd probably feel left out of if she didn't.

Between bites, Mama tells them about her work, and how she had to argue with the makeup artist about what her undertone is. Mama knows lots about makeup, and what colors go together, so May understands what she means when she says that she's very pale pink rather than true ivory, and that her eyes are closer to yellow than blue. Daddy really doesn't, but he listens anyway, because he loves Mama, and Mommy is always interested to hear about the clothes. May is just glad to finish her food and listen to the way their three voices come together and mean home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to NoBrandHero for the beta. <3


End file.
